The present invention relates to presentations provided via a network, and more specifically, to providing hyperlinks in presentations viewed remotely.
Sharing presentations via a network such as the Internet takes many different forms. Web conferencing describes online collaborative services including web seminars, webcasts, web meetings, etc. Web conferencing uses Internet technologies to provide services to allow real time, point-to-point and multicast communications from a sender to one or more receivers. Software enabling web conferencing may be run in different ways including: on web browsers, using installed conferencing software on each participant's computer, or via a hosted web service.
It often occurs that viewers of a real time, shared presentation are presented with hyperlinks on screen, often being discussed as a part of the presentation. In order to follow the hyperlinks, the viewers have to either find links themselves or interrupt the presenter to gain access to the links available. For example, a team leader may be reviewing work items in a web based workflow management system and a user may not know what a particular work item is. To find out, the user would need to open a web browser, navigate to the page being presented, and click on the work item to find more information.
Current solutions to open hyperlinks, which are shown in a live presentation of a web browser include the following. A viewer may ask the presenter for a link to the current page being shown by interrupting them on the phone or in person. A viewer may ask for a link to the current page being shown using a web meeting chat. A viewer may search for the page himself, provided he has access to the domain. The presenter may make any web pages featured in the presentation available before the presentation, for example, via email or instant messaging.
YouTube (YouTube is a trademark of Google Inc.) provides a system for adding annotations in the form of cards linking to a website from videos that have been recorded and uploaded. The system allows the user to specify a time in the video where the card should be added. When watching the video, the annotation will appear at the specified time. This requires a user to manually add cards and requires the video to already be on YouTube servers.